


the violence in the pouring rain

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 09:45:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4824236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Dark One, he summons.</p><p>Only darkness replies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the violence in the pouring rain

He knows of desperation – blood between your teeth and copper on your tongue, ribs collapsing on themselves until only remains a heart of ashes. He knows of desperation, the ugly broken kind where you can't see right from left through the fog on your mind, heavy, choking.

Killian knows of despair. Standing on top of a cliff, one foot the the air, ready to take the proverbial step forward.

The dagger trembles between his fingers; the skin of his forearm tinkling beneath the dark and crimson ink. The irony tastes like ashes on his tongue as he stares at the letters engraved in metal, as he stares at this weapon he's been chasing for years, decades, centuries. The Dark One is no more, but victory is bitter against his teeth. His Milah is lost to him, and now Emma is no more, Emma is a shadow, a ghost, a memory.

Emma isn't the one he calls, summons. Emma isn't the one ignoring his orders, and a cackling laughter echoes between his ears in the deafening silence of the night. The lad has despair and heartbreak in his eyes, misery at the corners of his mouth, and Killian refuses to see another lost boy appear in front of his eyes. He's witnessed too many of them through the years, knows a little too well of their nightmares – knows they don't stop when comes morning, haunting even in when the sun is high in the sky.

So he tries. Harder, louder, as if she could hear, listen, obey. The dagger trembles between his fingers and the fates laugh at him. The entire universe laughs at him – timelines crossing and collapsing, leading to this moment, this torture.

The dagger trembles in his grip, and with it his teeth, his bottom lip, his heart.

The Dark One, he summons.

Only darkness replies.

 

…

 

He finds her in Camelot.

Well, no. They stumble upon Camelot, and here she is – unlike everything he had imagined. She looks the same, with skin like porcelain and piercing eyes, lips red as blood, hair gold and tamed. She looks the same, and different altogether. It’s in the way she falls in his arms, gripping his jacket a little too tightly, in the way she breathes against his neck, ragged, broken. It’s in the way she looks at him, eye wide open so he can read the feelings there – she’s terrified, beyond repair. He knows the feeling.

“Don’t let me go,” she whispers to his ear, words hushed and hurried. “Please, Killian.”

She has never been one to beg. Her pride is her downfall, head high and eyes proud, and he has always loved that about her, no matter how infuriating it can get at times. She has never been one to beg, and yet she does, fingers like claws on his shoulders. She doesn’t only talk about the here and now, even if Killian does indeed wrap his arms around her, refuses to let her out of his embrace.

Don’t let Emma go.

Don’t let the Dark One win.

He could promise her so – it is his job to protect her heart, her mind, after all. He could promise, but he won’t. Not when he feels like choking on the lie, too big and imposing to slip between his teeth. He refuses to lie to her, to gives in to false hope. He will try, oh Gods will he try – lose his own mind over the puzzle of hers, lose his life if it means her survival.

“I’ll try my best,” he replies, soft, loving.

He holds her closer to him, as if it could do anything.

 

…

 

His best, he learnt a long time ago, never is enough.

 

…

 

Emma has never been mean, not on purpose. She had a few venom-laced words for him, but always out of self-preservation; he never blamed her for it, not once. The Dark One – she’s something different. She feeds off the darkness, of course, and loves it. It’s in the gleam in her eyes, the smirk at the corner of her mouth, a crocodile of her own. She grins, all teeth, no laughter, and it’s the most threatening vision of all.

She has little care for politeness and love; the words are daggers of their own in her mouth, her taunts deadlier than an arrow to the heart. But it is her games that will most likely be the end of him, like a cat playing with a mouse before snapping its neck in halves.

Killian is no stranger to hallucinations – alcohol and white-hot pain will do that to you, and he met his fair share of mermaids in Neverland. He is no stranger to reality blurring with dreams, to the false meeting the truth in a hazy way. Still, never would have he expected, not once since the day he met her, that Emma would be the one to force him into such a cruel treatment.

(No, not Emma, but…)

It is Emma in front of him, light, beautiful, hair like sunrise around her face, lips pink and flushed with kisses. It is Emma in front of him, whispering sweet nothings to his ear and laughing with her eyes. She’s a vision, a miracle. His battered heart will never be big enough for the feelings he has for her, too dark and broken, never worthy enough.

She smiles at him between kisses, a rose in her hand and ring on her finger – it’s perfect, until it’s not. Until his mind catches up with everything and screams for him to snap out of it, to see the truth between the lies. Sweet, beautiful lies, but lies nonetheless. He blinks and shakes his head, lost, confused.

It must show, for her smile drop, her eyes darken. She bares her fangs at him, Dark One in all her terrible glory. “What?” she spites in his face. “I wasn’t enough for you?”

“It wasn’t real,” he replies, jaw clenching, head dropping.

None of this is real, he reminds himself.

And don’t you ever forget it.

 

…

 

She has a fascination for him that Killian would find flattering, were the occasion different. Her parents she hates, her son she ignores. Him, he benefits from some kind of favourable treatment. She doesn’t exactly flirt with him – not the way Emma used to, fluttering eyelashes and witty retorts – but he cannot ignore her interest, either. It could be lovely, but...

But she is feral about it, in ways he doesn’t particularly appreciate. Brash, too, cornering him between her body and old vessel, smirking like the cat who ate the canary as her fingers grab the lapels of his jacket. (Mouse, bird… He is nothing but a prey to her, at this point.)

“What do you want?” he asks between clenched teeth.

Oh, he knows. He sees it in her tongue darting to wet her lips, slow and seductive; he sees it in her hips brushing against his, a barely-there touch with a promise of things to come. He sees it in her eyes, burning with want and lust; in her hands, traveling down his throat, caressing his collarbone. She’s a sight to behold, and few would be the men to deny such propositions – and yet he must. For her sake and his own, he must.

"Remember Neverland?"

Her voice is low, almost candid and childlike as the question takes him by surprise. Almost takes him by surprise. He’s learnt to expect everything and nothing of her, always on his guard, always at the ready for whatever she will throw his way. Lucky him, he has had centuries to master witty comebacks and clever replies.

"Too bad it was a one-time thing," he answers, sarcasm like venom on his tongue.

He is tired of her games, tired of everything. Mostly he misses her; the real her, mother and saviour and princess and lover. He misses what made Emma his Swan, the way she fit against his side, hand finding his, head in the crook of his neck. He misses her kisses, hugs, sighs – the little moans catching in her throat and her nose rubbing his before diving for another kiss. He misses her, and himself in the process – he isn’t Killian without Emma, lost at sea, wandering, erring.

He’s lived centuries without her.

A couple of weeks, and he’s drowning.

 

…

 

He clings to her like a dying man would to his last breath – desperately, miserably. His short nails must be digging half-moons in the pale skin of her back, but neither of them seem to mind as she sobs into his neck, teeth against his collarbone. His hook bites into his hips, his hand travels up and into her hair, grabbing, pulling, anchoring himself to the weight of her pressed to his body, to the smell and warmth and feeling of her.

She heaves a sigh, deep and heartbreaking, and buries his nose in her hair. The tears don’t fall, but make his vision blurry, clouding his mind with a headache drumming against his temples.

“Don’t go,” he begs. “Please, Emma. Don’t leave me again.”

She laughs, the sound breaking on a sob she cannot swallow. Her hand slips beneath his shirt, hot against the skin of his back. It grounds him to the reality, to _this_. It grounds him to the here and now – Emma in his arms, the dagger at her feet, useless in the lack of name carved into its metal. He wants to laugh, too, but the sound gets caught behind his teeth, dying on his tongue.

“I’ll try my best,” she replies, not quite cheekily enough.

He doesn’t laugh, but he smiles.


End file.
